R & R

So the trip to Russia and Romania went well. I have posted some pictures if you are interested. (Russia and Romania pics). Setting up the trip to Russia was a little bit of a hassle, as you have to jump through some hoops to get the visa (Though I'm sure it's easier then getting a US visa). But luckily I know someone here at work who was able to arrange the hotels. That's right... no hostel traveling for Russia this time. We started via overnight train from Finland to Moscow. There we hit up most of the tourist sights including of course the Kremlin and the Red Square. We missed our chance to see Lenin in his Mausoleum, but that was okay as the lines can be really long. We also had some delicious "traditional" Ukrainian food. Oh, and the metro was fun. It is down fairly far underground, so you get to take these super long excalators in which everyone stands on the right or runs by on the left. Very organized. And I was impressed with the amount of people the metro seemed to move. But then again, I haven't been to so many huge metros before.

We then took the train to Saint Petersburg for a few days where we stayed in a hotel across the street from Route 66. When you read about Saint Petersburg's history, it sounds like it was built to reflect western Europe, and it sorta does. So in that sense it didn't feel as 'Russian' as Moscow did. At least not to me. Anyway most of our time was spent hitting up the sites, mostly historical and such. Which for me, at times, was really interesting to think about how this was where the communist revolution occurred. We also took a boat trip one day to Peterhof and spent another evening at the opera. Tosca. Good stuff, even though in Russia you always have to pay the foreigner price, which can be about 3 times what the locals pay. In the end its about the same price as any "western" city. It's just not as cheap as the sign says.

We next took the train back to Helsinki for a friends wedding on Suomenlinna. I had too much fun to be able to get myself to the airport the next morning at 9am, but lucky for me vicki was capable and we made the flight to Bucharest on time. Romania just joined the EU, so while its a fairly poor country and there is still corruption, people seem optimistic and there is construction everywhere. Anyway, we sorta train-ed our way across Transylvania, stopping at some old castles and cool looking medieval towns along the way. At the end of the week we were at Oradea where we met with Vicki's friend Adam. Oradea is 7 km from the Hungarian boarder and has the only stretch of Highway in the country - the 7 km to Hungary. So its where the European highway ends. Sorta. Anyway, we were able to spend the weekend with Adam, which included a hike along the train tracks to a cave and a waterfall, and ending with a wonderful home cooked dinner and home made wine. Real fun stuff. I didn't know a thing about Romania before, and found its recent history interesting. Their revolution was just in 1998, and when we asked Adam about what he remembered (he was only 9 then) his reply was just that his parents where happy and cheering the TV, and on that Christmas he had his first ever Pepsi and chocolate bar. I knew that things were tough in the soviet block, but no chocolate bars?

There was some small excitement in the train one day when we came to a very sudden stop. Being in the front car we decided to look and see what happened. It took a second to realize the problem was that the locomotive was about a hundred feet further down the track then the rest of the train. Guess something broke. They hoked it up temporarily to get us slowly to the next station where we waited for a replacement locomotive. All the smokers enjoyed it as they were able to get off and have their fix as they watched train be repaired. Anyway, after Oradea we went back towards Bucharest and stopped Sinaia where we spent a few days hiking very slowly before heading home. Oh, I forgot to mention that basically the whole time in Romania I was sick. I am thinking it was something I ate.... like eggs (salmonella??). It was not fun, maybe the worse stomach pains I can remember having. So the hike into the Bucegi Mountains wasn't so fun, but I seemed to finally recover during our stay at the Cabana near the top. I even ate pork liver the night before we left (not on purpose... we couldn't read the menu, and it was recommended by the server. But for the recored - not recommended by me).